Letter to the Editor Response to comments on: Burned patients who die from causes other than the burn affect the model used to predict mortality: A national exploratory study Dear Sir, We appreciate the constructive comments on our paper [1] raised by Dr Ayubi and Dr Safiri in their letter to the Editor. The use of hierarchical regression is interesting, particularly as it has been suggested for studies with limited sample size. However, our intention was not to develop and test a new prediction model. We think there are already enough mortality models for burns as the predictive value of the best exceeds 95% [2,3]. We aimed to describe the rarely occurring patients who die with a Baux score less than 100 [1]. This group is heterogeneous regarding burn characteristics and factors that could affect survival. The patients in this group represent an exception among the general burn population because most of the deaths are related to other causes than the burn. It can thus be argued that it is obvious that the removal of those patients from the analysis with a mortality model using Baux score as the only independent variable should improve its predictive value. This assumption had, however, never been tested before. Yet, as our results were generated from a single centre study with a limited number of deaths, we acknowledge that a multicentre approach would improve the generalisability of our conclusions and confirming our findings. We appreciate the interesting and relevant comments which will help us in the future planning for our studies. Conflict of interest statement There were no conflicts of interest. Authors’ contributions The authors wrote, read, and approved the final manuscript. REFERENCES [1] Pompermaier L, Steinvall I, Elmasry M, Thorfinn J, Sjoberg F. Burned patients who die from causes other than the burn affect the model used to predict mortality: a national exploratory study. Burns 2017. [2] Steinvall I, Elmasry M, Fredrikson M, Sjoberg F. Standardised mortality ratio based on the sum of age and percentage total body surface area burned is an adequate quality indicator in burn care: an exploratory review. Burns 2016; 42:28–40. [3] Osler T, Glance LG, Hosmer DW. Simplified estimates of the probability of death after burn injuries: extending and updating the baux score. J Trauma 2010;68:690–7. Laura Pompermaier a,b, * Ingrid Steinvall a,b a Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, and Burns, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden b Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden Mats Fredrikson Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden Moustafa Elmasry a,b,c a Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, and Burns, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden b Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden c The Plastic Surgery Unit, Surgery Department, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt Folke Sjöberg a,b,c a Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, and Burns, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden b Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden c Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden * Corresponding author at: Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, and Burns, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden. E-mail address: laura.pompermaier@regionostergotland.se (L. Pompermaier). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2017.09.007 0305-4179/ã 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. burns 43 (2017) 1817 –1827 1827